The ‘Just Add Magic’ Halloween Special Is A Welcome Seasonal Delight For Tweens

When last we saw the Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie on the Amazon Original series Just Add Magic, the gang had just freed Kelly’s grandmother from the curse that rendered her catatonic. But every spell has a price, and the girls’ latest magical recipe has summoned Grandma’s ancient nemesis. In “Just Add Halloween”, a special episode that bridges the first season and the soon-to-be-released second season, our tween heroines have to travel back in time to last Halloween to fetch a powerful herb that can only be harvested on that very special night.

My daughter—perhaps the world’s most jaded ten-year-old—wasn’t super-impressed by the use of time-travel as a plot device. “It’s been done.” Well, sure. But this time-honored trope made for some amusing moments: It’s always awkward to bump into a past iteration of oneself, right? And I liked how time travel both created a conflict among Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie, and also provided its resolution.

This Halloween special is probably most resonant for fans of the first season, but it certainly works as a stand-alone episode. And it was intriguing enough that my kid wanted to go back and dive in from the beginning—which is both what the creators of this episode wanted and a testament to its quality.